About

Keith Jarrett and conductor-pianist Dennis Russell Davies have been friends and musical comrades for forty years. In the mid-70s the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, under Davies’ direction presented Jarrett’s chamber music. In the 90s Jarrett recorded the Mozart piano concertos with Davies and the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. Near the beginning of their association, Jarrett invited Davies to play a composition he had written for solo piano. To listen to Ritual is akin to experiencing the core of a Jarrett solo concert. The interpreter may be different, but the lyrical expression is remarkably consistent. As Dennis Russell l Davies says: “Those who know Keith will hear him in this music. It couldn’t have been written by anyone else.”

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Dennis Russell Davies  Piano – Press Release

“Ritual is unmistakably Jarrett, but it's a whole different experience to hear another pianist perform it—especially one like Davies, who comes largely from the classical world and is perhaps better known as a conductor whose whose work, beyond a 40-year relationship with Jarrett, includes ECM New Series classics like Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa (1984) (on which Jarrett performs, coincidentally), as well as the more recent Melodic Warrior (2013), from guitarist/composer Terje Rypdal…

Ultimately it matters not, as the melodic disposition that is so often at the heart of everything Jarrett does remains a constant here, and Russell Davies' performance is both confident and assured. His touch may be a tad firmer than Jarrett's in the quieter moments, his attack more vehement in the more dramatic passages, but these are nothing more than the consequences of interpretation.

In the end, Russell Davies best articulates the most important aspects of this brief (just 32 minutes) yet superb recital in his brief notes: "although I could never, in improvisation, begin to assume his qualities as a creative force, Ritual is a vehicle through which I can bring his spirit to the listener. Those who know Keith will hear him in this music—it couldn't have been written by anyone else."” – All About Jazz

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